“Every golf shot makes somebody happy.”
Dave Cable, executive director of the Catawba Lands Conservancy, noted Wednesday that this recession that’s whipsawing real estate development has a small bright side. The so-called highest and best use of a lot of land around here has gone from residential development to speculative land holding. And no one knows when the market is coming back. So some developers decide they need to sell the land, fast.
“We literally have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for land conservation,” he said.
Cable’s remarks came at a Wednesday breakfast for corporate, foundation and government partners. The nonprofit, nonadvocacy land preservation group has preserved more than 8,000 acres from development in the Charlotte region.
“I get calls all the time from developers now,” he said after the meeting. Potential conservation sites are being eyed in Union, Gaston and Mecklenburg County, he said. Not all offers are, or should be, accepted, of course. But the group has some 1,600 acres in the pipeline for possible conservation in 2009.